My new place is in a town called Troutdale just outside of Portland. The town has a reputation for being extremely windy.

To protect my veggie garden, we are planting lots of berry plants in hedgerows to form windbreaks. Blueberries, raspberries, Marion berries, Logan berries. Hopefully, two years from now, we will be up to our eye balls with fresh berries. I also purchased about 50 strawberry plants to help with erosion control. Two varieties are Mt. Hood and Rainier strawberries. Neither are good for commercial because they just don't hold up as well as commercially viable ones like Seascape, Quinult (sp), Gaviota... And my partner loves Rhubarb so we also purchased a rhubarb plant. I picked one which has multiple buds and one which can be divided later this season.

It will be an interesting year starting out from scratch. Have to tear out the useless lawn first. I plan on using poly tunnel to jump start my veggies and toward the end of growing season, plan on using taller poly tunnel with solar heater to extend my growing season. We are going to experiment with year round growing in Portland.